Undying Love
by Dukepearl
Summary: Percy and Annabeth's legacy has come to an end. When they descend into the Underworld, they both achieve Elysium and of course try for rebirth. When they bathe in the River Lethe, preparing for their new lives, Percy manages to keep them dry, saving their memories. But as the memories slowly resurface in the demigods' new lives, what will happen? Will they even be demigods anymore?
1. And Then, It Was Over

_A/N: So, here is my Percy Jackson fanfic! It's kind of an interesting topic to explore, and I hope you all will enjoy it as it goes! Thanks for reading :) please comment what you think, any suggestions, or ideas that you would like to see happen!_

 _-Leslie_

* * *

Percy and Annabeth were dying. Even the mighty must fall at some point, I guess. They were lying on the muddy battlefield, their lives slowly bleeding out from the many cuts, scratches, and slashes over both of their bodies. "Percy," Annabeth said, "As long as I'm with you, I'm okay with dying. We've saved the world enough, now it's time to let someone else take our place."

"Yeah," Percy agreed, "You're not getting away from me. Never again. I love you, Wise Girl."

"I love you too, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth replied, smiling. And with that, holding hands, they both sighed and closed their eyes for the very last time.

 **The Underworld**

"You have both achieved Elysium," King Minos, the judge for the day, declared grudgingly, "You may go there now or attempt rebirth and try for the Isles of the Blest."

"Rebirth!" said Percy and Annabeth simultaneously. On their way across the River Styx, they had hatched a plan, and right now, they were praying to all the gods, but especially Poseidon, that it would work.

"Okay then, right this way," directed another ghost, this time a girl, "Follow me." The ghost led them down a well-hidden path that came out on the banks of the River Lethe. "Whenever you're ready," she said, gesturing towards the river.

"Ready?" Percy whispered to Annabeth. He hoped more than anything that he could accomplish this one last feat. If not, than getting a second life wasn't worth it. Not without Annabeth.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Annabeth replied, and she grabbed Percy's hand.

"3, 2, 1, GO!" Percy yelled, and clutching each other's hands, he and Annabeth jumped in to the river. Percy channeled all of his energy into one simple thought: dry. He had to keep them from touching the memory-absorbing water. Percy had never hoped for something so hard. They hit the water, and for a heart-stopping second, Percy was afraid that he had failed. But when he poked his head out of the water, his hair was perfectly dry. Thank you, dad, Percy silently prayed.

"Okay, we'd better get out before the ghost girl notices," Annabeth said. They climbed out of the river, and Percy silently prayed for one final thing as he used the last remnants of his internal power to drench the two of them with normal water, so that their guide wouldn't notice what had happened. "Now, Percy," Annabeth said quietly, "you know this has never been done before."

"So, what's new?" Percy responded, and he smiled as the memories of all their adventures flooded his mind. "How do you think this'll work then, Wise Girl?"

"I think the memories will come back slowly as we grow up...and if I've calculated right, we will remember everything by the day we first met." Annabeth answered, voicing the possibility she'd been trying to convince herself of.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Percy said, giving her one last hug as he motioned to the guide that they were ready. "Come on." And he embarked on what he knew would be his last adventure for a long time, at least as Percy Jackson.

 **Twelve Years Later**

Hannah woke up, startled, from her bad dream.

"Hannah, dear!" her mother, Alice Bell, called from downstairs, "It's 9:00, time for breakfast! Come on down!"

"Coming, Mom!" Hannah shouted back down. She groggily stumbled out of bed and changed into some ripped jeans and a t-shirt with an owl on it. She brushed her teeth, threw her blond hair up in a ponytail, than went woke up, startled, from her bad dream.

"Hannah, dear!" her mother, Alice Bell, called from downstairs, "It's 9:00, time for breakfast! Come on down!"

"Coming, Mom!" Hannah shouted back down. She groggily stumbled out of bed and changed into some ripped jeans and a t-shirt with an owl on it.

While she ate her pancakes, Hannah thought about her dream. Ever since she turned twelve, she kept having these nightmares. And every night they got scarier and stranger. This particular one had been her and some weird (but not entirely ugly) boy fighting Medusa, whom she recognized from Latin class. But the strangest thing was that these dreams- they couldn't be more than dreams- seemed real. Almost like memories of a past life. And the boy called her by a different name-Annabeth. It kind of sounded like her real name...Hannah Bell. She shook herself out of it. "It doesn't matter, Hannah," she told herself, louder than she had intended.

"What was that, honey?" her mom asked. Her mom seemed to know that something was wrong, though Hannah wasn't planning on telling her what it was. She'd think Hannah had lost her mind. Which was already partially true, as she attended Yancy Academy, a school for troubled children. And you could definitely say she was a troubled kid.

"Nothing, mom, just talking to myself." Hannah sighed, then walked out the door to school.


	2. Surfing a Wave of Memories

_A/N: Please comment and favorite if you like it! This one is a little longer than the last, and please let me know what you think of the little surprise at the end ;)_

* * *

Nate Jackson was late for class. He'd overslept, his parents apparently hadn't felt the need to wake him up (though he really wished they had, he'd been having a terrible nightmare involving a girl that looked a lot like Hannah Bell, the closest thing he had to a nemesis.) They had pulled up the car into the school drive (well, his mother had, Nate was only twelve) at 7:59, one minute before the bell was supposed to ring. Nathan slung his backpack over his shoulder, took one last bite of his blue waffle, then sprinted across the grounds and into the school building. He ran though the hallways, nearly bumping into many people, and slid into his seat in the back of the Latin classroom at 8:01, exactly. Dang it, he thought, almost had it. As he sat down, next to him, Hannah snickered. He glared at her. They had never gotten along perfectly, and now was no exception. But he did have to wonder...the dream, the one she had seemed to be in...what was that about?

"Ah, Nate," said his teacher, Mr. Brunner, from the front of the room, "glad you came to join us today."

Nate was glad he'd been late to Mr. Brunner's class rather than any other, because Mr. Brunner had always seemed to favor Nate, along with that girl Hannah, the one from his nightmare. He was never sure why, though. I mean, Nate wasn't exactly a straight-A student. He had ADHD and dyslexia, and he'd been kicked out of six schools in as many years. But every time Mr. Brunner asked a question, he'd look at Nate and Hannah with his thousand-year-old eyes, as if he expected both of them to know the answer. And when neither of them did (he was pretty sure he had heard that Hannah had ADHD and dyslexia as well,) then Mr. Brunner would just look away, disappointed. It wasn't fair! Why didn't he push the other kids like that?

Nate snapped out of his thoughts. "Um, hi, Mr. Brunner. Sorry, I overslept a little bit..." He replies, abashed. "I'll just, um, get out my homework."

But as he bent down to get his homework, the strangest thing happened. A wave of images washed over him, and they were almost like memories...except nothing like that had ever happened to Nate in his lifetime. There was that blond Hannah-ish girl again, telling him he drooled in his sleep. A boy with only one eye, calling Nate "Percy" and claiming they were brothers. The one thing he recognized, a woman that looked a lot like his mother giving him a blue chocolate chip cookie. A girl, who appeared to be deathly sick, but saying she could see the stars again. A bubble underwater, where he and the girl were kissing. That all flashed through his mind in an instant, leaving him dizzy and nauseous. "A-Annabeth..." Nate managed to get out. "It's me..." And then everything went black.

When Nate woke up, he was in the nurse's office, laying down in the bed. That was the good part-sleeping during school. The bad part was that he was next to Hannah Bell, and she was already sitting up. She must have fainted too. "You alright?" He asked her, finding it weird that the same thing had happened to both of them. He'd almost made it this whole year without an incident, and now, on the last day of school? Man, his life sucked.

"You drool in your sleep," she replied, and Nate gasped.

Where had he heard those words before? They sounded hauntingly familiar...but he just couldn't figure out why! This whole blackout thing was a mess. At least lunch was next, so Nate could go talk to one of his few friends, Cameron. Nate was sure he would be in a good mood, ready to listen, because it was enchilada day. Wow, did that boy love enchiladas.

Hannah and he were silent for the rest of the time they were in the nurse's office, and when she deemed them ready, she sent them to lunch. They didn't talk to each other at all, and as they both walked into the cafeteria door, she sniffed and went to join her friends, including another guy with an enchilada obsession. Weird, right? You would think there was only one in every school.

As Nate went to join Cameron at their table, he wondered if he even should tell Cam. I mean, Cam might think Nate had gone insane! He could lose the only friend he had, and he really didn't want that. But he decided to tell him, because if there was one thing Nate was certain of, it was that he would stand by his friends, no matter what. Even if death was threatening. And he needed to trust his friends to do the same. So when Cam arrived at the table, holding (surprise, surprise) an enchilada, Nate proceeded to tell him all the events of the morning. He explained about the rush of memories, but as he tried to explain specific moments, they kept slipping out of his grasp, as if he were trying to keep hold of an eel in the water. He explained how he had heard a name...Annabeth, how he had said it right before he blacked out. When he finished the story, Cam didn't look shocked, or afraid, he only looked hopeful.

"No," Cam muttered under his breath. "It can't be..."

"What? What is it?" Nate asked, totally oblivious. He had no idea what was going on, and somewhere in the back of his head, he knew he should've been worried, because Cameron seemed to know exactly what was happening.

"Nothing. It's nothing. But I could've sworn..." Cam picked up his tray and left the table, straightening his rasta style cap as he went.

Nate sighed. He was on his own again. Well, what was new. He lived with his parents, always living under the shadow of his twelve year older half brother, who died tragically right before Nate had been born. His parents refused to mention his name, and Nate never asked. And now, after Cameron had left, he realized that he needed to talk to his mother, to have her help him deal with whatever these flashbacks were.

Nate went through the rest of the day in a daze, taking P.E. class (without Cam, as he had a note excusing himself from it for life,) and struggling through English and math. When it was finally time, the end of the last day of school, he jumped into his mom's car and was silent the whole way home. When they arrived at their apartment, his father, Paul, wasn't there. He must've still been finishing up his job at school as a teacher. So after Nate set down his stuff and flopped on the couch, his mom came over and sat next to him. She always knew when something was wrong.

"Well, mom..." He explained everything that had happened in Latin class, all the memories he could recall. The names, Percy, Annabeth. By the time he had finished, his mother was staring at him, a tear running down her cheek.

"Oh...it can't...how did this..." She stuttered, trying to find the right words. For Sally Jackson suspected something of this second son, but she could hardly date to bring herself to hope.


	3. The Messed-Up Truth

_A/N: Oh my gods, that was a tough chapter to write! Poor Sally :(. I am so, so sorry for the extremely long wait! As it's the end of summer, I've been busy, first on vacation, and then getting ready to go back to school (which includes awful summer homework.) I really hope you all enjoy this update. Please remember to leave reviews and please follow/favorite if you enjoy it! Thank you all! -Leslie_

* * *

"Mom. Mom!" Nate said, unnerved. His mom was the toughest person he knew. He had never, never seen her cry before, unless she was talking about his older half-brother. But this...this couldn't be about that. Nate ran over to his mom and hugged her tight. "What's wrong. What's wrong with me?" He asked.

Sally stared down at him with unmeasurable pain in her multicolored eyes, and Nate couldn't read the emotion. Fear? Worry? Or maybe, just maybe, a flicker of hope. What the heck was going on here?

"Nate..." Sally started, but then paused. "Maybe...maybe we should wait until your father gets here. It should be any minute now, school is well over." Sally wiped away the few tears, regaining her composure. That reassured Nate a little bit, the fact that his mom was staying strong. Sally walked into their family room and sat down on a couch, and Nate was right behind her.

When Nate's dad got home, he joined them, sitting on the chair across from the couch. "What's wrong, Sally?" Paul Blofis inquired, noticing that it appeared as if she'd been crying. "Nate? Is everything okay here?

All of a sudden, Nate lost it. He was confused, his head was starting to hurt again, and his mom was upset with him for something he didn't understand. "I don't know! I have no idea what's going on. Just-just leave me alone," he shouted, running upstairs to his room and sitting on the edge of the bed. He was panting, filled with rage and a certain emptiness, as if there was just something missing, something that he wasn't sure he'd ever had.

The pain in Nate's head flared up, as if a knife was cutting his head from the inside-out. He clutched his head and flopped backwards on the bed as more images flashed through his head, similar to the last but different at the same time. The final vision lingered for a few seconds longer than the others. The picture dangling over a bottomless pit, with a white-faced, terrified girl (Annabeth? Hannah?) clutching his wrist, her face twisted with pain haunted his mind. Nate snapped out of it just as the boy in the vision let go, and he unknowingly screamed out that familiar name, "Annabeth!" at the top of his lungs.

His parents must have heard the scream, because just minutes later, Sally and Paul sprinted into Nate's room, looking shocked. "I was right..." Sally said, still disbelieving, "It...it is you." Sally Jackson then took on a pained expression, as if it was near impossible to get out the next word. "P-p-percy?" she whispered, taking on a faraway look.

Nate looked up, confused, angry, unsure. "Mom? I don't know what you mean...mom, snap out of it!" He yelled, bringing her back to attention. "My name is Nate. Nate Jackson. By the gods of Olympus, please tell me who the Hades this Percy is!" He exclaimed, then rushed his hands up to cover his mouth. Where had those words come from?

"Percy...Percy is-well, was- your older half-brother, Nate. Only he was something...something special." Sally began, tears already threatening to spill from her eyes. "I guess it's time for me to explain. You're ready now. But where do I start?" she asked, looking to Paul but really just thinking to herself./

"Nate, you've learned about the Greek gods in school, correct? With Mr., ah, with Mr. Brunner?"

"Yes," he responded to his mother, impatient and waiting to see where the heck this could be going.

"Well...those gods, those myths, they're all real, and they exist among us," Sally explained, looking to Nate. She was concerned as to how he would take this. He wasn't a demigod, but it could still be hard news for someone to learn. But somehow, he seemed surprisingly calm, accepting.

"Okay," Nate answered, only a little more freaked out then he was letting on. It did explain the visions, and the curses, and some of the weird things he'd seen over the years, after all. "And...Percy was somehow involved in all this?"

Sally looked at him, startled at his rational demeanor and direct questions. "Yes, honey, yes he was. Percy's father, well..." And she proceeded to tell all of Percy's story, from the day she had nearly died with the minotaur, to his tumble into Tartarus, and finally, to the final battle. The battle that not even the strongest demigod could survive. "At least...he and Annabeth were together. But it was hard on me, Nate. It was hard on your father too. Percy, I loved him so much. In the end, he was a great hero. Greater even than Hercules." Sally finished, and then she just lost control. She began sobbing, all the pain of missing Percy flooding back, as if there were a hole in the dam of her thoughts. _A dam hole_ , Sally thought, remembering the joke Percy had explained to her. The tears fell faster, hotter. Nate curled up in her lap, unsettled by his thoughts, and by the sadness that was bursting from his mother, bouncing off the walls, and taking over the room.

"M-mom?" Nate asked tentatively. "What does this...what does this all have to do with me?" For even though the legacy of his older brother had finally been explained, Nate was still not sure of his part in the story.

"Nate," Sally replied, voice hoarse from all the crying. "I don't know how, and I don't want to believe it, but..." she took a deep breath, still reluctant to give herself to the hope. "I think, just maybe, Percy's soul has found a way into your body. It's weird, impossible, strange, I know. But I just...I just want to believe it so, so badly," Sally said, the tears trickling down her face once more. She wrapped her arm around Nate, and her other around Paul Blofis ( _Blowfish_ , she thought) and the family sat together in the small room, with no company but each other, some tears, and the ghosts of memories whispering at their backs.


End file.
